Miracle of miracles, I heard back from Tumblr support yesterday and my account has been reinstated. So regularly scheduled content is a go. Still don’t know WHY any of this happened, but at least I got an apology and some assurances that it probably won’t happen again…

If you’ve come here from Tumblr, you’ve probably noticed a distinct lack on your dash these days. It’s not your imagination, I’m really not on Tumblr anymore. My blog and its archive spanning back to 2008 has been taken offline. Despite the outcry that Tumblr as a platform is dead following the ban of adult content, I was not making immediate plans to leave the site behind. Instead, that decision was made for me in the form of Tumblr terminating my account without any kind of warning or explanation.

my dash rn

It was a shock, to say the least. I’ve spent the better part of five years carefully curating my little corner of cyberspace to suddenly have it just vanish, while I was in the middle of queueing up posts for the day, no less! So that’s the long and the short of why I’m not around anymore.

I don’t know the exact details of how it’s being enforced, but it seems clear to me that this is the result of the site-wide ban of “adult content” (such a vague term for porn). My blog is hardly the first SFW blog to suffer this fate and support is slow to remedy these errors. It’s been clear from the very outset of this ban that Tumblr is handling this the way they seem to handle every problem that crops up since the site changes hands to first time – poorly.

To clear things up for you, here is the only contact I have received so far – in response to my query regarding the termination of my account…

I’ve been trying to get back in the saddle so to speak of writing every day, or most days, and this is a chunk of a story that’s been spooling out of be in a very non-linear, disorganized fashion. And I’m curious to hear some feedback.

“You wanna know what your big dark secret is?”

“Tell me.” Callum says from his perch in the corner, something dangerous glinting in his eyes even though he looked beat to shit.

“It’s not all the violent shit you’ve done, you wear that darkness like a big fuck off shroud. Darcy Callum, approach at your own risk. But somehow, in spite of all that, in spite of the training and the programming and the desensitization, you’ve still got this big, bleeding heart tucked away deep inside of you.”

“Ava…” he warned, looking like he’d been cornered even though she sat on the bed halfway across the room with her elbows on her knees and showing no signs of moving.

“What? It bothers you that someone can see past all the Aegis smoke and mirrors?” She said with an arched brow, waving vaguely in his direction.

He was shaking his head, looking down at the threadbare carpeting. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So you like to keep telling me.” The words crackled between them as she watched Callum trying to disappear behind a mask of blank neutrality. The silence dragged out. She’d wait him out all night if she had to.

“You should get some rest,” he said after several long minutes ticked by, not quite meeting her gaze. His voice was quiet, but lacked its usual warmth.

“Not tired,” she fired back stubbornly, quickly dismissing the dodge for what it was.

Callum let out a long suffering sigh, shooting her a hostile glare. For someone who knew every which way to push people’s buttons, he certainly didn’t handle having his own pushed.

“You’re impossible. I need some air.” He stood with the fluid grace Ava had come to admire and took three quick steps to the door.

“I knew exactly what you were the moment I met you,” Ava said over her shoulder, making him stop dead.

Callum turned slowly on his heel. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“All of it.”

Ava twisted around to consider him. The careful mask was slipping as his steely eyes bore into her, demanding answers he might not be ready to handle.

“I…” She cleared her throat and tried again. “There was something in the way you looked at me that – It made me think, ‘here’s someone who’ll finally understand me, the real me.’” She took a wavering breath and smiled weakly up at him.”You’re the first person who’s even made me feel safe. Do you know what that’s like?”

“Don’t. Don’t say that.” Callum’s eyes were screwed shut and his face turned away from her. “You shouldn’t be able to stand being in the same room with me. Do you know how many atrocities I’ve committed against people like you without even blinking, without even stopping to think about it? Hell, without even waiting to be ordered to do it.”

“Probably as many as I have,” Ava said quietly. The air in the room went cold as Callum’s eyes snapped to her face. “You treat me like I’m this delicate spring flower still fresh and new in the world, but you barely know me. You barely see me. My hands aren’t any cleaner than yours.”

The space between them was electrified as she stared him down. Ava pulled a knife out of her pocket and flicked it open. WIthout further warning, she dug the tip of the blade into her opposite wrist.

“What are you –” Callum’s eyes bulged and he jerked like he wanted to grab the knife out of her hand, but stopped himself. She slowly drew the knife down, making an inch long incision. Care not to cut to deep or too quickly, not because the blade wasn’t sharp enough – it cut through her so cleanly that the pain barely registered, but because it was something to focus on instead of the storm of denial and realization flashing across his bruised face.

“I was built in a lab to be a single-minded weapon. The next evolution of warfare – the ultimate deterrent.” She shook her head at that thought as she delicately extracted a data shard from her flesh. “That file you have on me is all bullshit to cover ___________’s tracks. Everything about what I really am is on here.”

She held out the data shard with her injured hand, blood dripping onto that tired, world-weary carpet. Callum flinched, his eyes slowly tracking from her face to the thin storage device. His hand twitched, but otherwise he didn’t move.

It’s that wonderful time of year where many people are fervently setting goals to get their shit together for the new year, while others take the more nihilistic approach of sliding through 2018 the same sack of shit they were for all of 2017. Now, I don’t have strong opinions regarding new year’s resolutions. They work for some and don’t for others, much like anything else. And it’s not like you can’t make the same kind of resolutions at any other point in the year. Dates are pretty arbitrary when it comes to making changes or starting new projects.

That said, I have learned a thing or two about trying to set goals while also being cripplingly depressed. Mainly, just don’t. Concrete goals are for the motivated, which you most decidedly are not when you’re suffering from clinical depression. I mean come on, nothing makes you feel better than that little voice in your head reminding you of all the things you should be doing, but aren’t because that takes effort and energy you just don’t have.

Sure, it feels awesome when you sit down with that fancy planner you spent too much money on, and create this whole scheme to get your life together and get shit done. You might even blow a whole week working out schedules and deadlines, the whole time basking in the glow of this artificial sense of control. But then comes the hard part – actually following through on your fancy plan. That’s where things usually fall flat. And then you’re back to eating cake for breakfast at 4pm, still in your pjs, watching Futurama episodes on Netflix. Trust me, we’ve all been there.

The thing is, having large goals just makes you frustrated when you can’t bring them to fruition right away. There’s nothing more discouraging. Even worse, you end up in this holding pattern of wanting to do stuff, but not doing it because you feel like you should be doing other things that you don’t actually feel like doing, instead. Doing nothing is way worse that not doing the things you think you’re supposed to.

So, instead of spending your time compiling endless to do lists you’ll use as an excuse to be down on yourself later, just work on whatever makes you feel good at that moment. You end up being surprisingly productive this way. And yes, you may end up in the middle of too many projects, but by chipping away each one, bit by bit, you will eventually finish some of them. That’s way better than trying to force yourself to finish that one project you just aren’t motivated to work on.

Just a friendly reminder that you can now sign up to my mailing list for (infrequent) updates on my goings-on. And if you like what you’re seeing, please donate to my ko-fi page.

She exhales sharply, her breath coming out in a puff of condensation in the frigid night air.

“Leave.” Her low voice draws the word out, so it hangs in the space between them.

“What?” He pauses in lighting yet another cigarette.

“That’s another one of those innocent words that sound ominous said out loud,” she explains, looking in the other direction.

“Right, exactly.” His words are muffled by the filter stuck between cracked lips. Tattooed hands cup a much abused plastic lighter. Her skin nearly glows, a pristine white in comparison to his. A testament to nothing, as she often says whenever he runs his hands down her body. Not everyone can wear their heart on their sleeve is his usual reply.

“What are we doing out here?” She stared out at the cars flying passed below them. He shrugs, making the buckles of his jacket clank against the concrete divider they’re sitting on.

“You’ve just been seeming… off lately. I thought you could use a quiet night.”

“‘Off?’”

“Yeah, distant. Lonely, even.”

“It’s fucking freezing out.” She huddles deeper into her coat, envious of his more wind-proof bomber jacket.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He inches closer to her, only to have her lean further away.

“I don’t know what to say.”

He doesn’t respond, just watches her while he takes a long drag. His peculiar blue eyes bore holes into, but she’s still not looking at him.

“Lex.”

“What?” Her gaze snaps to him, something still distant in the ways her eyes don’t focus on his face.

“I’m worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Convince me.” He takes another drag before stubbing out the cigarette next to him.

“God, Brody, we’re not doing this.” She turns and drops her feet over the edge of the divider, letting the rest of her body follow.

“Where are you going?” He reaches to grab her arm, but she’s already out of reach.

“It’s fucking freezing and I can’t feel my ass,” she says over her shoulder as she walks away.

Sometimes life just kinda shits the bed. There’s no other way of putting it, really. I think for many, that’s been the theme of 2017. I’ve been silent for the better part of this year simply because I’ve found myself without words. It’s not the most comfortable predicament for a writer, as you can probably imagine. Depression has a way of doing that to you, although I’ve been reluctant to really talk about it. Everyone’s been having a bad year, who needs to hear about more misery?

I certainly don’t. Currently, I find myself in a position of starting over. It’s not the most reassuring position to be in on the precipice of turning 30. I’m not currently gainfully employed, the situation at my last job having become untenable for my mental health. So where does that leave me right now? Well, it feels a lot like I’m trying to put together one of those monstrous 1000 piece puzzles, except this one didn’t come in a box with a nice glossy version of what the completed puzzle should look like. Instead, it’s in a worn ziplock baggie with no way of knowing if all the pieces are there, or if all the pieces even come from the same puzzle. And I’m just here trying to find those pesky side pieces, hoping that I’ll somehow be able to make all these disparate pieces fit together into something that more closely resembles a career than Frankenstein’s Monster.

It’s not all bad, though. I’m feeling hopeful, and maybe that’s all I need.

So this place has been pretty dormant the last like half year. The short of it is that I was working through some personal stuff that I didn’t really want to air out on such a public platform and otherwise didn’t feel like I had nothing else worthwhile to say. That’s depression for you.

Suffice to say that things are going better for me these days. I’m slowly slowly chipping away at a very large and super secret new project that I’m hoping to be able to debut sometime in September. And of course I’m still contributing to 365tomorrows.com at a somewhat sporatic rate.

On the whole I still don’t have too much to report, but I’m going to give a good try at updating this space more often.

My series, DON’T READ ME.TXT, has been listed over at Muse’s Success, which is a web fiction wiki. You can find the listing here, and if you’re so inclined, I’d be incredibly appreciative if you’d give it a rating or review! Obviously, there’s no obligation, but if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far, it’d be a big help to me if you could.

Hello friends! I have some very exciting news today! Over at 365tomorrows I am being featured for the month of August. The first of four stories when up today, titled “The Love of a Sister”. A new story will be going up every week, so make sure to check back.

For those of you who’ve never heard of 365tomorrows, it is a flash fiction site dedicated to bringing you a fresh story every day of the week. The idea is to provide stories that can be enjoyed during those brief in-between moments we all experience every day, like waiting in line for a coffee, or sitting on the metro, or waiting for an appointment. In 600 words or less, you will be transported into another world to meet new people and experience new things. Consider it a micro vacation from your hectic day-to-day.

As always, I hope you enjoy what I, and the other talented writers have contributed to the site. Have a wonderful evening!

Hello all! Today we have another guest post from the wonderful Jolly Writer.

The GOP held their convention a few days ago. The results were predictable. Donald Trump, the human embodiment of a compost heap, glazed in spray-on-tan is the presidential nominee. His running mate, Pence, is even more bigoted than he is, and has a long history of using the Bible as a legislative document in attempts to blatantly counter gay issues – and health care for women – and bathroom safety for trans individuals.

But you know what? I’m not going to rant about them today. (Not if I can help it.) I want to talk about what happens next because this is the part of the story where “it all goes wrong and we have only one chance left to succeed.”

The only way to stop Trump now is by voting for Hillary Clinton. Plain and simple.

I’d like to make it clear, I’m not a fan of her. She is the human embodiment of Washington thinking. It’s all about the palace intrigue: she thinks she knows best for a country that she doesn’t comprehend. Her knowledge is solely based how to play the Beltway power game. On any other day, that’d bother me.

Here’s why I’m 900% okay voting for her right now:

1) She won’t legislate laws into existence that allow parents to have their children electrocuted to try and change their sexual orientation. It didn’t work in the 1880s, it doesn’t work in 2016. More importantly, it was wrong in the 1880s, and it’s even more archaic and asinine in 2016.

The GOP can laud this idea as feasible because they reduce honest and acceptable orientation to that of a disease to be cured. Homo-, bi-, and a-, and trans-sexual are not diseases that need to be cured. Treating them as such is fundamentally bullshit.

2) She won’t create databases to have all Muslims register into. The whole idea of a registry bothers me on an entirely different level. I’m Jewish. My ancestry is Jewish on both sides. Both sides of my family faced the consequences of the Holocaust, including a very rare few who survived the death camps.

Before Jews were segregated into ghettos in the 1930s, before they were exterminated, the Nazis forced every Jew to register themselves. And they wore yellow Stars of David so they could be identified in public. The fact that the Trump campaign can even suggest borrowing from the Nazi party is an okay thing to do is terrifying enough.

Thus, in this particular area, voting for Clinton is an absolute no-brainer to me. I will eagerly and willingly stand between any and all who wish to reduce a peaceful demographic to serial numbers. I can say they’re peaceful because since Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, to the Pulse shooting in Orlando in June, there have been 998 mass-shootings. Only TWO were committed by Muslims under the guise of terrorism.

You know what? I could literally go on for days, detailing the GOP’s many sins and vast plans and why Clinton is better in every quantifiable way, but I’m not going to. Firstly, because enough ink has been devoted to them and secondly, because it’s not the point here.

I loved the idea of a Bernie Sanders presidency. I was so excited, from minute one, of seeing him go into office. I could imagine genuine progress for our country under his presidency, but he’s unlikely to be the nominee. The super-delegates aren’t going to change their minds and that’s wrong. It’s heartbreaking.

Now we face a greater dilemma. There is an entire and enormously vocal group of the country that is trying to legislate the United States into an evangelical Christian-Whites-Only where their racism and bigotry are justified at every level of government, top to bottom. Our only recourse is voting for Hillary Clinton. There is no future where I won’t feel better having cast my vote for her in these circumstances.

Please. We are standing at a genuine precipice where there is a vocal part of the country that will elect the antagonists to a dystopian novel, and then we are all screwed.

Please vote for Clinton. It’s no longer about moral high ground or theological superiority. It’s about not electing people who will eagerly and actively hurt and segregate everyone who is not white and male and straight.